Annie Hall

Alvy: Well, I don’t know what I did wrong. I mean, I cant believe this. Somewhere she cooled off to me! Is it-Is it something that I did?

Woman on the Street: Its never something you do. Thats how people are. Love fades.

Annie Hall is one of those films that linger in the mind because of the classic one-liners. Lines in this film are a fine blend of wit and philosophy. The above quotation is a very typical example of that.

'Its never something you do. That's how people are. Love fades.' All of us have grown up on books, fables and movies glorifying eternal love. Woody Allen here says to us something that is very contrary to that. Had he let the line be said grimly by a broken hearted person, weeping on screen, it would have evoked hardly any emotion. Instead he does it in the classic Allen way, he lets a 'Woman on the Street' say it. A woman who is just passing by and stops to answer Alvy, seemingly understanding his troubles in a trice. That works. 

84 Charing Cross Road

"I love inscriptions on flyleafs and notes in margins. I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned and reading passages someone long-gone has called my attention to."

Having grown up in a city that prides itself on its reading but has precious few libraries, I have always been an avid browser of second-hand bookshops. Mint fresh new books were always an expensive option and I ended up having a collection of treasured second-hand copies of my most liked authors. P G Wodehouse, George Bernard Shaw, Jane Austen ...all of them and more held pride of place on my bookshelf. Necessity of having to buy previously owned books soon turned to a passion as I found myself increasingly drawn to the tiny notes written in the margins of the well-thumbed pages. I would read what the previous owners had written ,there was a strange bond there as they had loved the same book that I had. Connections in life come up in so many ways. 

Imagine my surprise and joy when I came across a very similar sentiment expressed so beautifully in the book and film '84 Charing Cross Road'. Helene Hanff writes these lines to Frank Doel, the book shop owner. A charming film, which was adapted from the equally charming book '84 Charing Cross Road'.